First Impressions
by Matt1969
Summary: He's not entirely convinced she should be part of this mission. Missing scene from Children of the Gods, part 1 JackSam, preship


AUTHOR: Matt, Dec 05 - Jan 06  
SUMMARY: He's not entirely convinced she should be part of this mission. Missing scene from Children of the Gods, part 1  
RATING: PG  
DISCLAIMER: Characters are not mine, don't sue me. I can only give you the enjoyment I get from writing.  
NOTE: I think I've embarked on a series of missing conversations from the show.Telling Catherine (on my website and here)was the first, but you don't need to read that in order to enjoy this.  
FEEDBACK: Is always welcome

_Well, that had been a fun briefing - not_, Jack reflected as the SF led him to the base stores to be kitted out. Part of it had been a colossal waste of time, especially the moments when Samuels had opened his mouth. Jack had no idea what the desk jockey was even doing in the room. It was evident he'd not seen action in years.

General Hammond was a sharp contrast to the major. While he'd made it clear the desolate command was to have been his last, he'd taken seriously the threat the Gate posed. Add in the fact he'd not immediately pulled Jack up on charges relating to falsifying a report, and listened to his request not to send through that bomb, and this was a senior officer that might be alright. He certainly had to be better than General West.

Then there had been that last unknown quantity; Samantha 'Spitfire' Carter, known as Sam to her friends no doubt - one of which Jack O'Neill was most assuredly not. How the hell had she managed to wrangle her way onto the mission? He'd yet to look at her file, but he was willing to bet the Gulf action she'd cited was her first and last field experience.

The "anything you can do, I can do better," exchange had been embarrassing. Captain Carter had arrived at that briefing on the defensive, and Jack would bet she was fired up even before he'd wrongly assumed Sam Carter would be another guy. Any other airman would have known better than to behave like that. But maybe that was the problem; she was a she and not a man. Since he'd always led Special Ops units prior to his Stargate Command assignment, Jack had never dealt with a woman under his command before. In his view, an off-world retrieval mission wasn't the right time to learn how to handle the situation.

Then there was the fact she was a complete geek. At least Kawalski and Ferretti didn't spout off about molecules and decomposition and all that crap. They just accepted the situation and did their jobs. It was going to be like having Doctor Jackson all over again… only worse.

Jack ignored the voice in his head reminding him that Daniel had saved his life.

The focus of his thoughts happened to also be at the stores getting her kit together. Upon seeing Jack, she instantly snapped to attention. "Sir."

"Captain Carter," he acknowledged with an incline of his head. "Getting your uniform?"

"Yes, Sir. It's been a while since I've worn anything other than this." She gestured to the dress blues she was wearing.

"I can imagine." The Pentagon was hardly the place for BDUs. Too much of an administration-type place. Which reminded him of something. "Captain, I'd like to meet with you at eleven hundred hours in the conference room."

"Yes, Sir."

Jack O'Neill did not like unknown quantities. Best he find out what she was really like before the mission.

* * *

Before he met with her, he made it his business to review Captain Carter's file. If anything, he was even more disillusioned after reading it than he was before.

Captain Samantha Carter was apparently the daughter of General Jacob Carter who was currently stationed in Virginia. Jack tried to ignore the thoughts of nepotism that were creeping through his brain. This was an officer who'd been military since birth. No doubt she could repeat the regulations verbatim - and backwards. Jack knew the regs, no issue there, but occasionally he bent them to serve a greater good. Take the falsification of his report, for example. If he twisted one regulation on this mission, it was a guarantee he'd hear it about big time. Hell, she'd probably even cite it in her debriefing.

He was also right in guessing the extent of her field experience. After her tour of duty in the Middle East, she'd been reassigned to a science department in Washington DC. There she'd been introduced to the classified world of the Stargate.

However, despite her research, it appeared she'd never actually seen the object up close and personal. That wasn't a surprise. Daniel Jackson had had to decode the thing without seeing it either. So, when Jack entered the briefing room, he didn't think it was that big of a deal to see her staring out the window at it.

"It's so big," she enthused. "I mean, I saw photographs but they just don't do it justice."

"Captain." Sure, he'd been impressed as well but he wasn't going to let her in on that fact.

She blinked and came to attention. "Sorry, Sir."

"Easy, Carter," he warned, and she switched to parade rest. Oh, for crying out loud, they'd never get anything accomplished at this rate. "Take a seat," he said as he sat down.

"So, Captain," he began, pretending to flip through the manila folder he'd brought with him. "You seemed pretty determined to go through the Gate this morning. General Hammond thinks you belong on this mission. But he's not the one leading it. I am. And I want to hear from you. Why do you think you belong on this mission?"

"With all due respect, Sir, I've been involved with the Stargate project since before we knew it was called a Stargate. I should have gone on the first trip through but General West decided against it."

"With all due respect, Captain," he retorted, "you are a scientific officer of this Air Force and not a tactical one. Your field experience is limited, your covert ops experience non-existent. Give me something else."

"Can you work the dialing computer?"

"Don't need to," he replied. "There's a device at the other end that will help us get back. We used it once before." Hadn't she said she'd read the report?

"The mission is to retrieve Doctor Jackson?"

"That's right."

"Sir, he has a wife on that planet." Ah, so she had read the report. "It might be difficult to persuade him to return."

"He has no choice."

"He's not military. You may need some help in persuading him. I can help."

"How?" Jack laughed. He'd had enough of this crap. "With some feminine wiles? Captain, I've seen Sha're Jackson and you are no match for her."

"You hardly know me."

"No, I don't." He stood up and she instantly copied him. "Captain Carter, you have done nothing to prove to me you belong on this mission. You better damn well hope your actions speak louder than your words."

"Yes, Sir." She looked suitably chastised, but it wasn't enough for him.

"It's almost lunch. Make sure you eat before the mission." He'd read her file, seen the remark regarding her over-working and under-eating. No way did he want her wiping out on him due to hunger.

"Yes, Sir."

"Dismissed."

He watched her walk stiffly out of the conference room. Damn, was she going to make his life difficult!

FINIS


End file.
